f 



f o 
to 






DR. SMITH'S 



ORATION AT SOUTH BOSTON. 



AN 



ORATION, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



INHABITANTS OF SOUTH BOSTON 



SATURDAY, JULY 4, 1835, 



THE FIFTY-NINTH 



ANNIVERSARY OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 



BY J. V.^C^SMITH. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY RUSSELL, ODIORNE AND CO. 
D. Clapp, jr. Printer 184 Washington Street. 

1835. 



: 



South Boston, July 4, J835. 
Dear Sir, 

The undersigned, a Committee in behalf of the inhabitants of South Boston, 
return you their thanks for your very interesting and eloquent Oration this day pro- 
nounced before them, and ask the favor of a copy for the press. 

JOSIAH DUNHAM, 
Til. RICHARDSON, 
JOSIAH L. C. AMEE. 
To Dr. J. V. C. Smith. 



Quarantine Ground, August 15, 1835. 
Gentlemen, 

The Manuscript of the Oration, of which you have done me the honor to 
request a copy for the press, is placed at your disposal. 

Very respectfully yours, 

J. V. C. SMITH. 
To Messrs. Josiah Dunham, 



JOSIAH UUNHAM, ) 

Th. Richardson, > Committee. 
Josiah L. C. Amee, J 



fty tfiiftt 

Oi2 HN 



ORATION. 



We have not assembled to celebrate the nativity 
of an hereditary ruler. We have not been invited to 
come together to render homage to imperial dignity, 
nor to commemorate the endurance of a hateful dy- 
nasty. Nor are we called upon by the customs of 
our fathers to acknowledge on this, or any other day, 
a dependence on regal authority for the protection of 
our civil or religious privileges. A citizen of the 
United States of America can alone appreciate the 
thrilling associations connected with the return of an 
Anniversary which calls forth a spontaneous feeling 
of gratitude to the God of nations. It is the Birth- 
day of Political Freedom — the hallowed Festival 
or Patriots. 

While unnumbered millions are suffering the de- 
privation of all those peculiar blessings which have 
their origin in a government completely under the 
control of the people, we are in the undisturbed pos- 
session of all that is valuable to intellectual man. 



4 

No complicated machinery of arbitrary power embar- 
rasses our advancement in those great principles of 
self-government, essential to the preservation of what 
we already possess. No feudal tenure restrains us 
from the manifestation of sentiments which we may 
hope are never to be subdued by absolute exactions, 
till all intelligent beings have participated in that 
virtuous freedom which is now specifically and rightly 
denominated our own. 

To trace the history of our country, or even at- 
tempt to detail, minutely, the train of circumstances 
which contributed to its present elevation and char- 
acter, would be an act of supererogation. The story 
is written in the green fields ; it may be read in the 
beautiful structures of our great commercial cities ; 
and it is painted on the walls of our ships — those 
missionaries of the federal constitution, carrying to 
every port on the habitable globe the glorious intelli- 
gence that the problem has been solved — a nation 
can be free. It is a tale of the child's nursery — the 
theme of admiring historians. Who can be ignorant 
of those momentous events which characterized the 
emancipation of this fair country from the threatened 
thraldom of a foreign administration ? Who could 
have been so culpably neglected, particularly by a 
New England mother, as not to have had rocked into 
his constitution both the narrative and the spirit 



that produced the revolutionary achievement of his 
ancestors ? 

Important as it may be to keep in vivid recollec- 
tion the struggling spirit of the age in which it was 
most happily discovered that the king could do wrong, 
notwithstanding the potency of that fundamental 
doctrine which inculcated the divine rights of a 
crowned head, it is no less necessary to make sure 
and ample provision for the future, in reference to 
those who, in turn, will have a commanding voice in 
counsel. On our success will certainly depend the 
perpetuity of boasted institutions, which arose from 
the ashes of colonial jurisdiction. They have already 
been watched with anxious solicitude by philosophers 
as well as politicians, who have gazed on the infantile 
progress of this gigantic republic, with a view to the 
decision of a mooted question — Can a people govern 
themselves, and maintain national consequence abroad, 
without the artificial fixtures and appurtenances of 
royalty, and the train-bearers of monarchical splen- 
dor ? But we, also, may inquire — Can there be no 
efficiency — no energy of character — no wisdom — 
emanating from a voluntary association of men pro- 
fessing themselves accountable to their Creator, who 
have discovered that they can frame their own laws, 
can make provision for their own physical wants and 
the moral culture of their offspring, independently of 
2 



those burdensome, those intolerably oppressive con- 
comitants of the old governments of Europe, which 
inculcate implicit obedience to the sovereign will of 
rulers wholly inaccessible to the common orders of 
subjects? Has the bold experiment — for such, till 
comparatively recently, it has been regarded — of al- 
lowing every man the gratifying privilege of selecting 
his own magistrates, resulted in a failure — fulfilling 
the once supposed prophetic annunciations of those 
who declared, in the strength of their grey-haired 
profundity, that a democratic form of government 
was incompatible with the natural tendencies of 
man? Do -these United States exhibit to the world 
the sad spectacle of national degeneracy, since the 
cord was severed by which they were once connected 
to the Juggernaut wheels of British sovereignty? 
Does not this fertile land, under the protection of 
that mightiest effort of human genius, the written 
constitution under which we live, demonstrate an 
incontrovertible truth — that greatness of soul, intel- 
lectual vigor, and the habitual practice of virtues 
acceptable to God, conducing alike to peace at home 
and respectability abroad, may all flourish in a coun- 
try where ducal honors can find no nourishment ? 

As no one among us now pretends to deny the 
feasibility of a well-regulated representative gov- 
ernment, in which equal rights shall be maintained 



and justice bear an even balance, theoretical specula- 
tions in regard to the manner of its organization are 
beginning to be laid aside. But a far more weighty 
inquiry occupies the thoughts of practical philanthro- 
pists, which has for its object the surest method of 
giving permanency and stability to the glorious 
foundation which was laid, at the expense of so 
much blood, on the American continent. Is it pro- 
bable that this magnificent edifice, the first temple of 
freedom the anxious world has ever beheld, reared by 
unremitting toil and privation, will by and by fall in 
consequence of the complexity and vastness of its 
proportions ? Will our successors be doomed to 
mourn the instability of laws which have conduced 
to the unexampled prosperity and rational happiness 
of those independent States which now constitute 
the confederated strength of the only genuine repub- 
lic on earth ? Can these altars of freedom in after 
times be forsaken? Will legislative corruptions at 
some future period overthrow the watch towers so 
faithfully guarded by sentinels, who, however ope- 
rated upon by the conflicting claims of partizan war- 
fare, have never yet lost sight — no, never — of the 
high destiny of the nation confided to their charge ? 

By contrasting the condition of the people of this, 
with that of the most favored governments of Eu- 
rope, some adequate conception may be formed of 



8 

the immense superiority of our institutions. Ushered 
into being where the very atmosphere invigorates and 
enlarges the capacity for understanding the unaliena- 
ble rights of a citizen, and knowing no superiors but 
such as have excelled in acts of disinterested benevo- 
lence to the wronged and afflicted, the sons of 
America are the only lords of America. Like Her- 
cules resting upon his club, they survey the broad 
expanse before them, and, though possessing nothing 
but the energies of an untramelled spirit, they decide 
upon the course of life most congenial to their inborn 
disposition — and then no obstacle can oppose the 
attainment of the highest objects of commendable 
ambition. They discover no dangers in the way of 
honorable distinction — and as for Fear, it was never 
discovered by any transatlantic phrenological cabinet 
in the well-developed heads of such freemen as these, 
who were nurtured on the produce of their own 
farms. Without presumptuous boasting, may we 
not ask — Where exists a parallel race of men? and 
where, if not in the land of our nativity, is that 
desirable resting place in which life is not one unin- 
terrupted struggle for the maintenance even of the 
minor class of privileges ? No royal potentate here 
lays an impost on the scanty purse of the laborer for 
the use of heaven's light that shines upon his misery 
through a single pane of glass. No titled nobility 



are preying upon the harvest earnings of a depressed, 
wretched, heart-broken tenantry. No venal church 
hierarchy drags within the vortex of an insatiable 
appetite for worldly possessions, the tenth sheaf from 
the farmer's door. No mort-main claims to terra 
firma paralyze the efforts to successful enterprise. 
No military chieftain, glittering in stars and garters, 
the ensigns of hereditary authority, terrifies with the 
despotic mandates of his sovereign lord and master. 
No minions of a vicious and corrupt court trample 
under foot those aspirants to usefulness and fame 
whose blood, according to the artificial distinctions of 
a few, is more polluted by plebeian admixture than 
their own. Such is the inimitable construction of 
our favored government, that the obscurest occupant 
of a hut in the wilderness may aspire to the highest 
places of distinction. He looks forward, too, with 
paternal solicitude, to the time when his sons, as 
hardy and as honest as himself, shall become eminent 
in the annals of their country's fame. However 
humble his origin, guided by those unerring principles 
of the moral law which render justice and mercy to 
all, there is no limiting the onward and upward 
march of an American born citizen. 

If such are among the invaluable advantages of the 
charter of independence, who can possibly be indif- 
ferent to the exhibition this day made, throughout 



10 

the vast region under its protection and fostering 
care ? Who does not feel that life would be bereft 
of its chief enjoyment, if unaccompanied with the 
hope of transmitting this heritage to a succeeding 
generation, as untarnished and spotless as it came 
from the hands that won it 1 

Without reference to local politics, or, indeed, any 
of those engrossing topics of the day, in relation to 
public affairs, in which it is utterly impossible not to 
indulge in preferences, one way or the other, the 
ostensible design of the exercises to-day, in this sec- 
tion of the city, is to commemorate, in a public and 
appropriate manner, the ever memorable declaration 
of the independence of these United States. Differ- 
ences of opinion in regard to legislative or executive 
measures — which, however, produce no breach of 
friendship between those professing the political 
creed that all men are born free and equal — necessa- 
rily result in the nature of things, where restrictions 
on the liberty of speech are unknown, and where the 
press, the mightiest engine of all, thunders its ana- 
themas, or commends the virtuous firmness of the 
servants of the people. However divided in respect 
to the precise method of conducting immediate gov- 
ernment operations, confided as they necessarily must 
be to the discretion and direction of a few, there can 
be no settled division endangering the permanency of 



11 

the established order of things, in this matchlessly 
devised confederacy, while honesty and virtue re- 
main. Each one theorizes as he pleases, proposes 
whatever he chooses, censures or applauds as he is 
disposed, without fear and without reservation ; — 
and yet, with all these dreadful instruments of inter- 
nal mischief in less propitious climes, men of all 
parties, from A. D. 1775, to A. D. 1835, have inva- 
riably united, most heartily and cordially, in main- 
taining the unspotted honor, dignity and integrity of 
the union. 

It is a singular trait in the character of the people 
of this country, that while they have ever shown 
themselves stubborn and unyielding in any attempt 
to force them against the clear convictions of their 
own indomitable minds, they actually enjoy the re- 
putation, wherever the genial influences of civilization 
have been extended, of being the most docile, peace- 
ably disposed, and quiet respecters of the whole law, 
of any people in the universe. When they have dis- 
covered the expediency of establishing legal enact- 
ments, no exhibition of military power is required to 
enforce their obedience. 

By what combination of circumstances have these 
national characteristics been established ? Mainly by 
that remarkable discovery, in the first misunderstand- 
ing between Great Britain and her colonial settle- 



12 

ments in America, that all men are positively and 
undeniably equal — that the Being who rains upon 
the unjust as well as the just, has given no authority 
in the divine revelations of his will, and no indica- 
tions in the architecture of any man's body, that any 
particular individual or representative of a family 
possesses a superior or exclusive claim to the uncon- 
trolled civil relations of others. 

Under the mild beams of our free constitution, our 
general system of education tends still further to 
overcome false estimates of the value of property in 
conferring consequence upon its possessor, beyond 
enlarging his sphere of usefulness in warmly co-ope- 
rating in plans for increasing the amount of comfort 
to those less fortunate, and in raising the value and 
productiveness of the possessions of others. Thus, 
those at all distinguished in any department of active 
life, have passed through nearly the same scenes of 
mental discipline, rendering it extremely difficult for 
any assumed superiority, not founded on generous 
principles, to be long maintained, that may not 
be completely demolished by equals in birth and 
equals in education. 

The advantages of this admirable scheme of educa- 
tion are both seen and felt, from the august halls of 
legislation to the log house of the forest. Poverty 
here interposes no barrier to the exaltation of the 



13 

poor man's child from the village school to the uni- 
versity, nor from thence to the study of the learned 
professions — the stepping stones to enlarged scenes 
of usefulness. Are there such ample provisions made 
for the pennyless, at the expense of the rich, in any 
other country ? No ; the policy of the moss-grown 
monarchies of the old world has invariably been to 
suppress and subdue the latent sparks of intelligence, 
which occasionally break forth from the very depths 
of political misery, shining with surprising splendor 
and effect. Knowledge cannot be safely trusted with 
the menials of a crown, lest it should explode with a 
vengeance, and in its liberation from the green withes 
of degradation and ignorance, overthrow the decaying 
fabrics of legitimacy. 

Instead of delighting in the practice of that very 
antiquated philosophy, as old as the first formation of 
civil society, that the security of wealth depends upon 
the absolute ignorance of a certain portion of man- 
kind, it is to be presumed that doctrine can find no 
advocates among the reflecting here, where the rich 
and the poor are mutually dependent on each other. 
The former can no more dispense with the habitual 
services of their poor neighbors, than both classes 
can maintain vitality independently of the sustaining 
agency of their Creator. Nor can the poor dispense 
with the assistance of the rich. Whatever may have 
3 



14 

been the result of determined enterprise, in changing 
the aspect, at least, of the rugged features of the 
Northern States, it has been achieved by the com- 
bined energies of different classes of the community. 
Such bold conceptions as are continually being car- 
ried into effect, exhibited in the removal of moun- 
tains that we may outstrip the feathered races in the 
rapidity of our intercourse, or in ploughing through 
every sea under the awning of the blue sky above, 
where it is practicable to float a plank, are the efforts 
of no single mind. A mutual and reciprocal inter- 
change of offices, from which none should be ex- 
cluded but the imbecile or the morally incompetent, 
characterizes, in an eminent degree, the present con- 
dition of this great nation. While this state of things 
continues, and under our present form of government, 
no lasting evils can arise from a monied aristocracy, 
that, bugbear of a politically distempered imagination. 
Death itself limits its benumbing influences, if any 
such it ever exerts over a people so jealous and so 
keenly alive to their patrimonial immunities. Over- 
awed by the vigilant regard to the established provi- 
sion originally made in the organization of the general 
government, for the safety and happiness of the 
whole, the accumulation of wealth, flowing in one 
unbroken stream to these western shores, contributes 
as much to the prosperity of the man who toils for 



15 

his daily meals, as it does to those who take upon 
themselves the vexations of its management. 

Bound together by a unity of purpose, under the 
excitement of the sacredness of the cause, in which 
there was neither division of sentiment nor exclu- 
siveness among the friends of their country, the 
indestructible principles of the Puritans roused their 
vigorous descendants, in the revolutionary struggle, 
to the performance of deeds of mighty import. De- 
termined upon sustaining whatever was right, and 
equally decided upon suppressing whatever was wrong, 
they conducted to successful issue the most extraor- 
dinary revolution recorded on the page of history. It 
were a useless expenditure of time, on the present 
occasion, to recount incidents illustrative of all the 
transactions of those eventful days. They are writ- 
ten every where. The nearly obliterated remains of 
turf-bound fortifications that protected the lives and 
the homes of our brave and ardent forefathers, are 
lively mementoes of their illustrious achievements. 
Even the very spot of earth on which we stand, from 
whence orisons are raised to a protecting Providence 
for an extension of that knowledge which is power, 
and for the diffusion through benighted and less for^ 
tunate lands of the principles of conservative liberty, 
has once been the scene of awful preparation. 



16 

Of no great apparent value in the estimation of its 
original proprietors, South Boston remained almost 
unoccupied, compared with its present appearance of 
thriving industry and opulence, and certainly unpro- 
fitably improved, till the eagle eye of that best, that 
disinterested, heaven-guided defender of our beloved 
country, discovered the prolific qualities of its soil. 
Under his observant tillage, in one solitary night, it 
yielded a crop that freighted a whole British fleet, 
which has never shown a desire to return to the port 
of Boston for a second cargo raised on the memorable 
Heights of Dorchester. 

Of so little consequence, in the early settlement 
of Boston and Dorchester, was this now beautiful 
section of the metropolis of New England, that in 
1637 it seems to have been presented to the majority 
of the inhabitants of Dorchester, not precisely as 
residents, but as proprietors in right of pasturage. 
[Note A.] The record says that " The settlers found 
the Neck free from trees and in the condition of a 
pasture — a desirable consideration to the comers, for 
they brought cattle." Admitting this to have been 
the fact, a new growth of timber must have appeared, 
south of Mount Washington, as in 1775, at a legal 
town meeting in Dorchester, it was " voted, To sell 
the wood of Dorchester Neck ; " also, " voted, That 



17 

the above vote be so far reconsidered as that one or 
two trees be preserved for shade." [Note B.] 

Being a peninsula, and, at every high water, an 
island, it was easily eonverted into a safe place for 
cattle by the erection of a few rods of fence near the 
present locality of the toll-house. From thence, a 
causeway led to the Neck, commanded by a gate. 
[Note C] Herdsmen were appointed to collect and 
drive all the kine there, and go for them at night. 
The " oxen and steers," says the chronicle, " were 
in one fenced pasture, by themselves, and the young- 
lings in another." In 1776, it is supposed that no 
particular alterations had taken place, as on the 
5th of May, in that year, it was " voted, That the 
income from the common land at Powwow Point 
this year, be allowed towards maintaining a gate 
across the way leading to Dorchester Neck." After 
the lands in other parts of the town were brought to, 
the common use of the Neck was relinquished, and 
purchases were finally made of the proprietors of 
Matapan, or grants obtained for actual occupancy. 
The first settlers were of the names of Bird, Blake 
and Foster. The Blakes, says the venerable Dr. 
Harris in a recent note, were officers of distinction 
in town and church — being deacons, elders, select- 
men and town clerks. The very last hold of the 
Bird family to the inheritance of their ancestors, 



18 

passed from them about nine weeks ago. The de- 
scendants of those three families were many of them 
meritorious officers in the revolution. 

An aged, intelligent lady, a lineal descendant of 
Mr. Foster, residing west of the Episcopal Church 
[Note D], has a distinct recollection of the topogra- 
phical appearance of South Boston before the war — 
being eight years old when the tocsin of alarm was 
first sounded. At that eventful epoch, twelve small 
families only resided here ; and it is quite remarkable 
that the number had never increased up to the day 
of its affiancement with the old town of Boston. In 
her childhood there was a thrifty orchard, of consi- 
derable extent, stretching from two delightful trees 
south of the Episcopal Church, just adverted to, to 
the base of the eminence south of the Catholic ceme- 
tery. [Note E.] In the preparations contemplated 
for fortifying the Heights, all these fruit trees 
were cut down and strewn in a long range, as a sort 
of breastwork, at the foot of the hill, to obstruct the 
passage of any who might attempt the annoyance of 
the laborers, intended for the future fortress, still 
higher up. 

On the day of the battle of Lexington, April 19, 
1775, South Boston, then occasionally called Ma- 
tapan Neck, was completely forsaken, for the first 
time since the settlement of Dorchester, not a single 



19 



individual remaining — knowing full well that the ven- 
geance' that exterminates would be hurled upon the 
defenceless, by the now exasperated foe. On making 
inquiry of the good lady above mentioned, whether 
there were any tories residing on Matapan — " No," 
she exclaimed, in the true spirit of her patriotic 
blood, " every one here was ready to fight till he 
died." 

Some Continental soldiers, who came over to the 
Neck for a stroll, at that particular period, could 
scarcely be restrained from destroying her mother's 
house, in consequence of having discovered, acci- 
dentally, that some of the rooms were papered — 
a species of elegance to which they were so unac- 
customed, that, in their sa«:e imaginings, none but a 
tory or a traitor could reside in such a palace. 

At the water's edge, south of Havves Place Church 
[Note F], is the once celebrated Powwow Point 
[Note G], where the wild aborigines held their mys- 
tic orgies, long after Dorchester and Boston had 
become quite flourishing settlements. As late as 
within one or two years of the war, their roving de- 
scendants were in the habit of coming from Stough- 
ton and its neighborhood, yearly, where many of 
them had wigwams, for the celebration of a feast at 
Powwow Point. 

Nearly all the old buildings in South Boston were 



20 

destroyed with fire in 1776, by a party of British 
soldiers who came over from Boston and the Castle, 
on the ice. Five small ones, only, out of the whole, 
of little value, however, were saved by the owners. 
The papered house of Mrs. Foster, on this barbar- 
ous visitation, was reduced to ashes. The two large 
trees, before spoken of, mark its precise locality.* 

In 1804, by an act of the General Court, Dor- 
chester Neck, the ancient Matapan, became a part of 
the town of Boston ; not, however, without consider- 
able opposition on the part of their Dorchester 
friends. Two, out of the twelve inhabitants of South 
Boston, never would give their consent to the sepa- 
ration, notwithstanding the amazing increase of value 
given their property by the transaction. One of 
those two men once held a farm of fifty-two acres, 
now intersected by streets and covered by numerous 
dwellings. In order to accomplish the scheme, 
which certainly demonstrates the foresight of the 
projectors, one of whom is still living, and induce 
the Bostonians to acquiesce in the proposed annexa- 
tion of nearly six hundred acres of territory, it was 
confidently asserted that Boston could not contain 
many more people : it was expedient, therefore, that 
the opportunity should be improved of securing a 



* November 23, 1772, widow May's barn was burnt, which belongs to the memorable 
items of those davs. 



21 

prize immensely important to the future accommo- 
dation and convenience of a rapidly increasing town. 
After many unsatisfactory negociations with Dor- 
chester committees, the town being offered, through 
them, six thousand dollars not to oppose the applica- 
tion then pending before the General Court, which 
they, unfortunately for the treasury, contemptuously 
refused, the design of making it a part of Boston was 
speedily effected, to the no small chagrin of the con- 
script fathers of Dorchester, who not only lost the 
money offered them, but the jurisdiction of Matapan 
Neck forever. [Note H.] 

But there are other reminiscences connected with 
the history of South Boston, of far deeper concern ; 
and to the survivors of the Massachusetts militia 
lines, who gave an earnest of their devoted patriot- 
ism during the long and gloomy siege of the capital, 
the following narrative of events that transpired on 
this very ground, will doubtless recall some youthful 
emotions. 

On the 20th of July, sixty years ago, the Provin- 
cial Congress recommended the observance of a 
solemn fast throughout the colonies, to implore the 
divine benediction on the country. British troops 
were then master of the lives and property in Boston 
and its environs. All the eminences in the vicinity 
were beginning to be secured by one party or the 
4 



22 

other. In the following August, the rural town of 
Roxbury presented the confusion of a camp. Breast 
works were thrown across the main street, from 
which bombs were daily thrown into Boston.* An 
event of considerable importance occurred on the 
10th of the ensuing October. General Gage, of 
hateful memory, was succeeded in the command of 
his Majesty's forces on the Boston station, by Gen- 
eral Sir William Howe, who marked the commence- 
ment of his absolute career by a proclamation of 
peculiar severity. General Gage, not succeeding in 
the mission for which he was considered eminently 
qualified, returned to England in the same month, 
1775. General Howe threatened the terrors of a 
military execution against any one who should pre- 
sume to pass the boundaries of Boston, without a 
written permission. In case they escaped apprehen- 
sion, in disobedience to his order, they were to be 
dealt with as traitors, and their effects forfeited. A 
further provision made it penal, even when departing 
with a license from the Commander in Chief, to car- 
ry more than five pounds of specie, on the further 
pain of fine, forfeiture and imprisonment. What 
humiliating conditions were these, to men who were 



*A fortification was erected on the Neck, between Boston and Roxbury, as early as 
1710. About the commencement of the revolution, the Neck was commanded by an iron 
gate, confided to the charge of a British soldier. 



23 

destined to become transcendantly renowned — whose 
darings for their country's freedom will be remember- 
ed when the colossal obelisk on Bunker Hill shall 
have been lost in the accumulating rubbish of a mu- 
table world. 

In a word, Boston had been insensibly transform- 
ed into an extensive British garrison, while its entire 
body of inhabitants were held in close imprisonment. 
Although an express arrangement had been made on 
the part of General Gage, previously, and a solemn 
promise given, that on the surrender of their arms 
the citizens should have a free egress and ingress to 
and from the country, he had no sooner effectually dis- 
armed them, than he shamefully violated his word, and 
by one infamous act of falsehood, forfeited all claims 
to the character of an honorable, humane, or generous 
officer. By this intolerable decree, members of fami- 
lies, who, as it were, had but just walked beyond the 
confines of the camp, were painfully separated : for not 
being permitted to return, even on abject terms, lit- 
tle children were left to cry for bread in the streets, 
while their fathers, in one place, and their mothers, 
perhaps, in another, were alarmed and distressed by 
these accumulating miseries. 

After the destruction of the tea [Note I], which 
exasperated the mother country beyond measure, 
and which was represented by the King in person, to 



24 

both Houses of Parliament, as an atrocious subversion 
of the constitution, that grave assembly resolved to 
make poor devoted Boston an object of direful legis- 
lative vengeance. A bill was forthwith passed, en- 
tirely prohibiting the landing or discharging of car- 
goes, or shipping goods, wares or merchandise, in 
Boston. This was the celebrated port bill.* By 
following that impolitic, unjust act, by another 
equally as unjustifiable, for the better regulation of 
the government of the Province of Massachusetts, 
which, indeed, contemplated the complete over- 
throw of its charter, the alarm extended wherever 
the English language was spoken on the continent. 
As the difficulties first begun in Boston, and more 
particularly in consequence of the daring act allud- 
ed to, the King was determined to have a quick and 
thorough example of such rebellious and undutiful 
subjects, not doubting the success of ministerial pre- 
parations for accomplishing his supreme behest. 

Nearly the last of that fearless company of pat- 
riots who constituted the celebrated Boston Tea- 
party, is now before the audience — the venerable 
relic of a century. This is Mr. George Robert 
Twelve Hewes — who will be one hundred years old 
on the 5th day of the coming September — formerly 



* The Port Bill was passed March 31, 1774, and the news arrived in Boston on the 
10th of the following May. 



25 

a citizen of Boston, who, on the verge of eternity, 
earnestly desired to revisit the early scenes of his 
youth, that his eyes might be gladdened with objects 
in which they once delighted. How wonderful ! — 
one hundred years of age ! — yet in the full posses- 
sion of his faculties, and susceptible of all the enjoy- 
ments and pleasures of social intercourse. 

Let the youth who have this rare opportunity of 
gazing upon the features of this extraordinary, this 
last man, as it were, remember the circumstance, 
that in their old age they may say to their children, 
they saw on the 4th of July, 1835, a man who as- 
sisted in throwing into the ocean three cargoes of tea, 
in order to resist the exactions of foreign taskmas- 
ters — and may the spirit which animated him on 
that remarkable occasion, live in them and their pos- 
terity, while home has endearments and true patriot- 
ism exists in the land which gave them birth. 

Venerable old man ! May heaven's choicest bless- 
ings rest upon your frosted head. Since you were 
born, three hundred millions of human beings have 
probably gone down to the grave — and yet you are 
spared, perhaps by Divine Providence, to be a 
living monitor to us to cherish our precious institu- 
tions, and to transmit them unimpaired to succeeding 
generations. Though you come to the land of your 
childhood leaning upon a staff, and feeling your de- 



26 

pendence on the charities of a selfish world, you are 
surrounded by friends who feel that their prosperity 
is referable to the privations, sacrifices and personal 
labors of you and your brave associates in arms. 
May your last days be peaceful, calm and happy, — 
and with your last breath, I beseech you invoke a 
blessing on our common country. 

"May your last days in one smooth channel run, 
And end in pleasure as they first begun." * 

General Gage, it seems, in preference to many 
others, was conceived to be the fittest person for 
carrying into successful operation the master stroke of 
policy devised by the British counsel of ministers, 
in regard to the town of Boston. The very day after 
his arrival, May 14, 1774, a numerous town meet- 
ing w T as called to consider the port bill, and it was 
resolved — " That it is the opinion of this town that 
the colonies come into a joint resolution to stop all 
importations from Great Britain and every part of the 
West Indies, till the act be repealed, — the same will 
prove the salvation of North America and her liber- 
ties ; and that the impolicy, injustice and cruelty of 
the act, exceed all our powers of expression. We 
therefore leave it to the just censure of others, and 



* When the speaker addressed Mr. Hewes, he rose before the audience, supported by 
the venerable Col. Henry Purkitt, who is reported also to have been one of the Boston 
Tea-party . 



27 

appeal to God and the world." Copies of this dar- 
ing resolution were sent with astonishing rapidity, 
considering the natural barriers and hindrances then 
existing, there being neither bridges, mail coaches nor 
even tolerable roads. Boston was doomed to politi- 
cal destruction for teaching false notions of liberty 
to others, till rank rebellion raged throughout the 
colonies. This will explain the state of affairs at 
this particular juncture, and also account for the 
concentration of foreign troops in such numbers in 
this metropolis. 

A growing disposition to dislodge such desperate 
intruders upon domestic rights, preying, as it were, 
upon the vitals of the community, from a town of in- 
calculable importance to the well-being of the whole 
colonial territory, could not long be kept in secret, 
and the more it was agitated, the more impatient 
were the people to carry the proposition into imme- 
diate execution. 

Thus, says Dr. Holmes, in his Annals of America, 
the inhabitants of Boston, distinguished for polite- 
ness and hospitality, no less than for industry and 
opulence, were sentenced, on the short notice of 
twenty days,* to a deprivation of the means of sub- 
sistence. Contributions were raised for their relief, 

* The Port of Boston was closed June 1, 1774. 



28 

at the same time that addresses and letters of ap- 
plause exhorted them to be firm and unyielding. 
To the lasting honor of Marblehead, in that dark 
hour of despair, they offered, as a town, in the most 
generous manner, to the Boston merchants, the use 
of their harbor, wharves and warehouses; and, lastly, 
for they were friends in need, they also proffered 
their personal services, free of all expense. May 
the children of such benefactors, as their fathers did 
before them, build upon a Marblehead rock ; and 
may their generosity be kept in perpetual remem- 
brance by a city that was once glad to receive 
a piece of bread from the hand of a Marblehead 
fisherman. 

Owing, in part, to the limited intercourse with the 
interior, and an unexpected loss of several store- 
ships, captured by our privateers in the neighborhood 
of Marblehead, bound to Boston for the support of 
the soldiery, inexpressible anguish was depicted on 
every face, as starvation actually threatened the be- 
siegers as well as the besieged. Driven, finally, to 
the last resource for saving life, some of the citizens, 
less favored than their vigilant overseers, were com- 
pelled to eat horse-flesh, or die of famine. The 
weather becoming extremely cold in the month of 
November, and fire-wood being as scarce as provis- 
ions, the wharves were stripped of timber, and the Old 



29 

North Church, beside upward of one hundred houses, 
were torn down for fuel. Added to these hardships 
and privations, the smallpox [Note J] raged exten- 
sively through the town, so that soldiers and citizens 
were alike in respect to its ravages. The British 
officers, in the midst of these multiplied afflictions, 
in the most insulting manner, occasionally exhibited 
farces in Faneuil Hall. The Old South Church was 
converted into a circus and riding school for a squad- 
ron of cavalry. Seven hundred soldiers had previ- 
ously been quartered in the present City Hall, and 
Hollis Street, the West and First Baptist, and Brat- 
tle Street Churches, were changed into barracks and 
hospitals. 

After the conflagration of Charlestown [Note K], 
the King's troops were principally stationed on Bun- 
ker Hill, and on the Neck, near the location of the 
well-known Green Store, where a redoubt of con- 
siderable magnitude was erected. Our forces, in the 
mean time, were stationed in Roxbury, Cambridge, 
and Dorchester, and therefore completely cut off 
from all intercourse with their friends in the town. 
From all that can be gathered of the actual state of 
public feeling, all were anxious for some decisive 
blow. Washington unquestionably conceived the 
plan of making an attack, as the only means of liber- 
ating the suffering inhabitants. 
5 



30 

It should not be lost to history, that while all these 
rigorous exactions were enforced, countrymen were 
allowed to convey vegetables over the lines, occa- 
sionally, for the tables of those who could indulge in 
such luxuries. Carts being less common then, than 
now, it was customary to carry this kind of market- 
ing in paniers, on horseback, through the streets and 
lanes. As an evidence of the shrewdness and deter- 
mined spirit which animated the people of that day, 
the following anecdote cannot be unacceptable. 

George Minot, a Dorchester farmer,* and son of 
John Minot, one of the select-men, went so fre- 
quently on these excursions, that the guard at the 
Green Store became quite remiss in the examina- 
tion of the returning paniers, in which he was in the 
constant habit of bringing out powder for the pow- 
derless patriots who constituted Washington's army of 
observation. In that humble capacity, he rendered 
invaluable service to his country. There being little 
or nothing in the town treasury, from which to draw 
purchase money in support of this singular but well- 
timed traffic, the father [Note L] advanced it to 
the persons of whom it was thus clandestinely pro- 
cured, trusting to the justness of the claim on the 
government he clearly foresaw must rise on the ruins 



* By those who knew him personally at the time, he is said to have been a butcher. 
He was, born November 27, 1755, and died in Dorchester, his native town, September 
14th, 1826. 



31 

of the colonial wreck. His confidence was not mis- 
placed ; — it became a funded debt, and with it he 
purchased a part of Thompson's Island, now the loca- 
tion of the Farm School, of the Rev. Dr. William 
Walter [Note M], then rector of Trinity Church. 

On another occasion, the same individual being 
permitted to enter the town with an an ox-team for 
offals, driven by a colored servant, purposely kept 
out of the way till the load was ready, which reach- 
ed home safely, with a four pound cannon at the 
bottom. A few days after, as the honest negro again 
leisurely drove up to the sentinel's post, he was ask- 
ed, "Well, Cuffee, what are you stealing to-day?" 
" O, same sort of stuff, massa," answered the Ethiop, 
and thus a second gun was adroitly procured of the 
Boston select-men. [Note N.] These same pieces 
were exchanged by the Dorchester Artillery, not many 
years since, for others of a larger size ; but it is be- 
lieved they might easily be identified, and they 
should be kept by the town as choice keepsakes for 
posterity. 

Through the whole war, Dorchester was remarka- 
ble for its patriotism. Town meetings were held 
very frequently, and seldom dissolved without some 
spirit-stirring resolution. At one time the town voted 
to cut four hundred cords of wood for the army, the 
price being fixed at " twelve shillings for oak, and 



thirteen for walnut." May 23, 1776, by unanimous 
consent, it was " voted, That if the Continental 
Congress should think it best to declare an indepen- 
dency with Great Britain, we will support them with 
our lives and fortunes." There were then but 1548 
inhabitants in the town, and thirty-five of these were 
negroes and molattoes. They encouraged each 
other to enter the army, and voted bounties, liberal- 
ly, though the treasury was nearly empty. June 
5th, 1776, they "voted, To spare the town's stock 
of powder to such inhabitants as have none, or have 
not a sufficiency — that no one person be allowed to 
purchase more than one pound, and that such as 
have some powder be allowed to purchase no more 
than enough to make up a pound to each man, with 
what he already has ; — that they pay for the powder 
when they take it, at the rate of four shillings per 
pound." July 18th, " voted, That the town will 
give the sum of eight pounds to each man that shall 
enlist for the reinforcement of said Continental 
army, upon their passing muster." Same day, also, 
" voted, That there be forty shillings added to the 
bounty this day voted by the town," &lc. August, 
1776, "voted, That each man of this town shall be 
allowed twenty shillings per month in addition to the 
wages allowed by the colony, while in service." 
November 17th, 1776, "voted, That the treasurer 



33 

be directed and empowered to borrow the money to 
pay the men, if there be not money in the treasury." 
This is enough to secure the imperishable reputation 
of that delightful town, now rich in all that her reso- 
lute select-men saw in perspective through the haze 
and clouds of revolutionary strife. 

A feverish excitement in every breast, demanded 
immediate efforts. The regular force of the Ameri- 
cans was not far from fourteen thousand, beside six 
thousand militia. With these, the Commander in 
Chief had a mind to take a station on the Heights of 
Dorchester, an admirable position, from whence the 
enemy's shipping might be considerably annoyed. 
General Washington apprehended an attempt to drive 
him away, that would bring on a general engage- 
ment, during which he hoped to take possession of 
the town with four thousand select soldiers, who 
were to be marched from Cambridge. 

In the following letter to the President of Con- 
gress, we shall have an idea of the transaction from 
Washington himself. " Sir," says he, " the resolu- 
tion relative to the troops in Boston, I beg the favor 
of you to assure Congress, shall be attempted to be 
put in execution the first moment I see a probability 
of success, and in such a way as a Counsel of War 
shall think most likely to produce it." This alludes 
to a resolve of the 22d of December, in which it is 



34 

declared, " That if General Washington and his 
Counsel of War should be of opinion that a success- 
ful attack may be made on the troops in Boston, he 
do it in any way he may think expedient, notwith- 
standing the town and property in it be destroyed." 

John Hancock, the unflinching friend of his coun- 
try, and the irreconcilable foe of its belligerent 
oppressors, then President of Congress, wrote a note, 
accompanying the resolve, couched in these remarka- 
ble words : " You will notice a resolution relative to 
an attack on Boston. This passed after a most 
serious debate in a committee of the whole house, 
and the execution referred to you. May God crown 
your attempt with success. I most heartily wish it, 
though individually I may be the greatest sufferer." 
His estate included the venerable stone house in 
Beacon street. The property which was left him by 
a relative, was valued at seventy thousand pounds 
sterling, and chiefly within the limits of Boston. 

It is worth the while to examine the trying condi- 
tion in which the immortal leader found himself, 
when meditating a blow of such incalculable benefit 
to the nation, as dislodging a British army from its 
comfortable quarters. In a letter to his brother, 
Augustine Washington, dated at Cambridge, March 
31st, 1776, he says, "I have been here months 
together, with, what will scarcely be believed, not 



35 

thirty rounds of musket cartridges to a man. Having 
received a small amount of powder" (probably some of 
it through the Dorchester farmer), " I resolved to take 
possession of Dorchester Point, lying south of Bos- 
ton, and looking directly into it, and commanding 
the enemy's lines on Boston Neck. To do this, 
which would force the enemy to an engagement, or 
subject them to be enfiladed by our cannon, it was 
necessary to possess two Heights, which had entire 
command of the Point. The ground at this time 
being frozen upwards of two feet deep, and as im- 
penetrable as a rock, nothing could be attempted 
with earth. We were obliged, therefore, to provide 
an amazing quantity of chandaliers and fascines 
for the work, and on the night of the 4th, after a 
previous severe cannonade and bombardment for 
three nights together, to divert the enemy's attention 
from our design, we moved every material from the 
spot, under cover of darkness, and took full possession 
of the Heights without the loss of a single man. Upon 
their discovery of the works the next morning, great 
preparations were made for attacking them, but not 
being ready before the afternoon, and the weather 
getting tempestuous, much blood was saved, and a 
very important blow to one side or the other was 
prevented. That this most remarkable interposition 
of Providence is for some wise purpose, I have not a 
doubt." 



36 

The fascines here alluded to, were an immense 
collection of white birch faggots, procured in the 
upper part of Dorchester, from the farm of Mr. Wil- 
liam Sumner, now eighty-seven years of age, from 
whom the facts have been collected. A Lieutenant 
and thirty soldiers were cutting the brush, early in 
the Summer; and the spot, on account of its obscuri- 
ty, was probably selected for safely carrying on the 
labor, by Washington himself, who rode over the 
ground. The farm was then owned by Captain John 
Homans, of Boston, who, says report, being suspect- 
ed of toryism, never presumed to ask compensation 
for the depredation on his woodland. [Note O.] The 
patriotic Dorchester yeomanry conveyed the bundles 
from thence to the toll-house. This shows the long- 
sightedness and calculation for contingencies, possess- 
ed by Washington. When the order was given for 
beginning the fort, three hundred teams, under the 
special charge of Mr. Goddard, of Brookline, were 
put in motion, as it were by magic, in the even- 
ins;, and the whole mass of fascines carefully re- 
moved in a few hours to the south-western side of 
the hills. Being carried to the top, by hand, they 
were set up with stakes, like basket work, and the 
interstices filled up with whatever was procurable, 
the ground being completely frozen. Not the sound 
of human voice was heard through the whole of this 



masterly ruse de guerre. Dr. Thatcher, then a sur- 
geon, says that when he accompanied his regiment 
over to the Heights at four o'clock on the next morn- 
ing, he observed an immense number of large bun- 
dles of screwed hay, arranged in a line next the 
enemy's residence, to protect the troops from a raking 
fire, to which they were exposed while passing and 
repassing. Some of the carts, he further remarks, 
had made three or four trips. Mr. William Sumner 
drove a team that night, and made five trips before 
daylight. [Note P.] Barrels of sand and stones 
were also piled up in rows, to let loose in case of 
any attempt by the British to reach the works. 

An aged gentleman, doubtless the oldest resident 
of South Boston, whose recollection of all the cir- 
cumstances is vividly and clearly retained, was on 
guard duty that night, on a look-out station, north 
of the Rev. Mr. Fairchild's Church. [Note Q.] 

When the morning dawned, there was apparently a 
majestic fortification, raised into being like the crea- 
tions of magic, amply supplied with men and guns, 
which had no tangible existence fifteen hours before. 

Such were among the heroic achievements of those 
who fought for their fire-sides, their wives, their 
children and their heaven-born rights. 

Nook Hill [Note R] had formerly upon its sum- 
mit a redoubt, raised equally expeditiously, in one 



38 

night. It was the location referred to, where our 
aged friend was on guard. [Note S.] The weath- 
er being freezingly cold, the fatigued soldiers, on 
completion of the work, by some strange thought- 
lessness made a fire, before which they laid them- 
selves down. A shot, guided by the light, was 
sent from the Green Store Battery into the very 
midst of them, which unhappily killed three soldiers 
and a Dr. Dole, a regimental surgeon. These were the 
only persons sacrificed at South Boston, through the 
whole of that ingenious course of manoeuvring, so 
important in its consequences. 

The following morning, on discovering the chang- 
ed aspect of the Heights, which, owing to a pecu- 
liar condition of the atmosphere, loomed, so as to 
appear vastly more appalling than they really were, 
General Howe is reported to have exclaimed — " I 
know not what I shall do ; the rebels have done 
more in one night, than my whole army would have 
done in weeks." 

Thus a miraculous interposition of Divine Provi- 
dence, in producing an optical illusion, contributed, 
eminently, to the success of the enterprise. 

General Howe, clearly apprehending his danger, 
chose, very wisely, to abandon what he could no long- 
er retain, after having had complete possession of 
Boston eleven months. But to secure a retreat, he 



39 

resorted to the mean threat of burning the town if he 
was molested in his embarkation. The soldiers were 
not disturbed in a hasty movement to get on board 
their ships. They dropped down the harbor on Sun- 
day morning, but a violent storm prevented them 
from going to sea till twelve days after. The con- 
course of spectators on the house tops and other 
elevated places in the vicinity, to witness the depar- 
ture of remorseless enemies, who had desecrated 
their churches and involved the whole country in one 
common ruin, were filled with the warmest gratitude 
to God, the deliverer. 

This was the auspicious moment chosen by the 
artist who executed the magnificent picture of Wash- 
ington, now in Faneuil Hall, when the immortal 
commander in this bloodless victory stood in gratified 
amazement, gazing upon the retreating shadows of 
the foes of liberty and equal rights. 

Thus, the preservation of the Capital, and almost 
the political redemption of North America, was 
effected on Dorchester Heights. So wonderful and 
so illustrious was this performance considered in 
other countries, that a medal was struck in Paris, in 
commemoration of it, bearing on one side a view of 
Boston with a fleet under sail in the distance, having 
Washington surrounded by his officers in the fore- 
ground, pointing to the vessels as they were wafted 
from his sight. 



40 

This recital has merely contemplated one single 
local incident, intimately connected, however, with 
the circumstances of the great American revolution, 
which, alone, is enough to establish the nervous zeal, 
cautiousness and untiring perseverance of our an- 
cestors. 

Through their matchless efforts, we became the 
heirs to a splendid inheritance ; and the world 
watches to discover whether it will be wasted through 
negligence and reckless indifference, or, strengthened, 
beautified and increased in value, go down to our 
children with all its original properties. Its mainte- 
nance obviously depends on the purity of the mo- 
tives of those who are entrusted with its administra- 
tion. This being conceded, no one will presume to 
doubt the propriety or importance of elevating men 
to official stations, whose unexceptionable lives inspire 
public confidence, and confer character and dignity 
on the country. Without high moral attainments, 
the feeling of responsibility is neither strong nor 
lasting. A perversion of delegated authority is a 
natural consequence of conferring power, where the 
temptations to abuse it are not restrained by a con- 
sciousness of accountability to a tribunal beyond the 
creations of man. 

If no reference is made to this surest test of quali- 
fication, and the recklessly ambitious are raised to 



41 

places for which they are wholly incompetent, the 
nation, with all its resources — with all its treasure — 
must positively become weakened at home, and 
pitied and despised abroad. So long as candidates 
for the first offices are raised to them by the merits 
of a good name, and factious leaders are circumscribed 
by the common sense of the people, those mani- 
fold evils which dismember empires can never take 
permanent root, or materially affect the foundation 
of our civil liberty. Ignorance is the invariable fore- 
runner of public political calamities ; and vice, the 
german concomitant of irreligion, chains down the 
active powers of the soul to perpetual bondage, 
when rational beings, regardless of duty to them- 
selves and to others, slight the only discovered high- 
way to virtue and happiness. 

This is an age of mind : the economical and con- 
structive arts are liberally encouraged ; ingenuity is 
everywhere patronized ; the exact sciences are appre- 
ciated and rigidly taught. Indeed, all varieties and 
shades of intelligence are exhibited on a field as 
broad and unencumbered as the most ambitious could 
desire. Our internal sources of wealth and inde- 
pendence are also exhaustless. Yet all these bless- 
ings had a beginning in the simplicity, honesty, piety 
and unobtrusive virtues of the Pilgrims. They 
brought the seed of American liberty in the hold of 



42 

the Mayflower ; it was sown in a soil enriched by 
the sacrifice of human blood ; it germinated in the 
revolution, and its golden fruits cluster upon our 
vines. 

But with all this prosperity, — with all our boasted 
love of country, — with aspirations upon our lips to 
Heaven for its preservation in the simplicity and 
goodness of its generous founders, morbid cravings 
are discoverable in the community. Luxury, a gan- 
grene which ever endangers the health of a nation, is 
creeping onward, gently, but not the less fearfully, 
as it irresistibly saps the foundation, and gradually 
undermines the solid pillars of a republic. Infidelity, 
too, that mildew of the brain, mocking the unchangea- 
ble laws of the Almighty, and blaspheming, with the 
audacity of a fiend, the Omnipotent God, is endea- 
voring to plant the standard of revolt in the very 
midst of us. The corrupt dregs and streetwashings 
of all Europe are likewise hastening onward to fill 
up the interstices of society — requiring barriers of no 
ordinary firmness to stay the pollutions that roll 
towards this tolerant and last home of civil liberty. 

To meet and subdue these formidable phalanxes, 
requires the unceasing vigilance of all who prize 
virtue for its own intrinsic excellence. To guard the 
fountains, therefore, that no poisonous draughts may 
be drawn from that source, demands the most ener- 



43 

getic measures. Society is more artificial than it 
should be : there is less of that confiding, ingenuous 
single-heartedness, than before it was operated upon 
by the specific agency of these deteriorating causes. 

Public virtue, like individual worth, contains, to 
some extent, the principles of self-preservation ; yet 
by suffering schools and the larger seminaries of learn- 
ing to wane through negligence, and sanctioning in 
youth the attainment of flimsy accomplishments, in 
preference to the acquisition of plain, useful know- 
ledge, we certainly enfeeble the moral structure, and 
open wide the portals to designing demagogues. 

Good men are everywhere laboring to check the 
contagious progress of corruption, and convince the 
unreflecting that life without liberty — life without 
virtue — life without religion — has neither a hold 
upon earth, nor an abiding hope in heaven. The 
means of cultivating the intellect and educating the 
moral feelings have been immensely multiplied in this 
fruitful age : there is now no apology for ignorance. 

Independence, therefore, instead of consisting in 
idolatrous prostrations to a ruler even of our own 
making — in striving to impede the timely and salu- 
tary alarm that intemperance is a national curse — 
in trampling under foot the moral code — or in bols- 
tering up the limited understanding with the vain 
expectation of proving that man is alone accountable 



44 

to man, would be a perversion of his natural facul- 
ties. Independence — only worth possession — for 
which sages have legislated and our hardy progeni- 
tors bled — contemplates the progressive improvement 
and development of the innate qualities of the human 
mind, regulated by temperance, sobriety, religion, 
and the habitual practice of the virtues that ennoble 
man. This is the kind of independence which will 
make us useful to our families, useful to our friends, 
useful to the world — happy individually within our- 
selves, and happy beyond the boundaries of time. 

To keep alive these acknowledged principles of 
liberty and equality, and to impress them upon the 
plastic minds of the youth, the anniversary of the 
Declaration of the Independence of the United States 
of America should be perpetuated with great public 
demonstrations of joy and gratitude. Then, in after 
times, when our bodies shall have mingled with 
the common dust, it may be said of our glorious con- 
stitution, in the splendid imagery of a Boston poet — 

" Man looked in scorn, but Heaven beheld, and blessed 

Its branchy glories, spreading o'er the West. 

No summer gaude, the wonder of a day, 

Born but to bloom, and then to fade away, 

A giant oak, it lifts its lofty form, 

Greens in the sun, and strengthens in the storm. 

Long in its shade shall children's children come, 

And welcome earth's poor wanderers to a home. 

Long shall it live, and every blast defy, 

Till time's last whirlwind sweep the vaulted sky." — Sprague. 



NOTES. 



NOTE A. 

List, from the Town Records, of Inhabitants in Dorchester, 
1637, among whom the land on the Neck (since called South 
Boston) was divided ; consisting of those of the original settlers 
who remained after the removal of some to Windsor, and of those 
who arrived with Rev. Mr. Mather, in 1635. [From the Rev. Dr. 
Harris's Centennial Discourses.] 



Andrews, Thomas 
Atherton, Mr. Humphrey 
Bates, Mr. James 
Bellingham, Mr. 
Benham, John 
Biggs, Mrs. 
Blake, William 
Bullock, Edward 
Butler, Mr. Nicholas 
Capen, Bernard 
Capen, John 
Clap, Edward 
Clap, Nicholas 
Clap, Roger 
Clement, Austin 
Collicot, Richard 
Deeble, Robert 
Dickerman, Thomas 
Dimmock, Thomas 
Duncan, Nathaniel 
Dyer, George 
Eelles, John 
Ehvell, Robert 
Farnsworth, Joseph 
Fenn, Benjamin 
Flood, Joseph 
Foster, Widow 

7 



Gibson, Christopher 

Gilbert, Mr. 

Glover, Mr. John 

Greenway, John 

Hatch, Thomas 

Hathorne, Mr. (house) 

Hayden, John 

Hawes, Richard 

Hawkins, Mr. 

Hill, John 

Holland, John 

Holman, John 

Hull, John 

Humphreys, Jonas 

Hutchinson, Mr. 

Jones, Richard 

Jones, Thomas 

Knight, Mr. 

Kinnersley, Tho. 

Kinsley, John 

Lambert, Thomas 

Lane, William Goodman 

Makepeace, Mr. Thomas 

Martin, Mr. 

Mather, Mr. [Rev. Richard] 

Miller, Alexander 

Miller, John 



46 



Smed, Widow 
Smith, John 
Stoughton, Mr. 

Sumner, William 
Swift, Thomas 
Upsall, Nicholas 
Wade, Richard 
Wales, Nathaniel 
Way, George 
Way, Henry 
Weeks, George 
Whitcomb, John 
White, Edward 
Whitfield, Mr. (house) 
Whitman, Mr. 
Wilkins, Bray 
Wiswall, Thomas 
Withington, Mr. 
Wright, Henry 
Wright, Richard 



Millet, Thomas 
Minot, Mr. George 
Moore, John 
Munnings, Edward 
Newbury, Mr. 
Niles, John 
Parker, Mr. 
Phillips, John 
Pierce, John 
Pierce, Robert 
Pitcher, Andrew 
Pope, John 
Preston, William 
Price, Daniel 
Proctor, George 
Purchase, Widow 
Read, William 
Richards, Thomas 
Rigby, Joseph 
Sam ford, Thomas 
Sension, Matthew 

NOTE B. 

November 7, 1633, the inhabitants of Boston were allowed 
liberty to obtain wood on Dorchester Neck, for twenty years. It 
is difficult to understand these several conflicting records. 

All the Islands in Boston harbor, though now entirely divest- 
ed of trees or shrubbery, were once well wooded. We find that 
on the 13th of January, 163S, thirty men, going to Spectacle 
Island to cut wood, were driven out to sea several days, by a 
storm, and one of the number perished. After all the wood was 
cut in the town (Boston), the people were permitted to get it on 
Dorchester Neck (South Boston), and the Islands. 

NOTE C. 

No satisfactory history has been discovered of the origin of the 
causeway. It must have been a laborious undertaking, and was 
undoubtedly constructed by the united efforts of those who had 
a personal interest in the pasture ; otherwise, some memorandum 
would have been placed on the town books, which are unique 
specimens of exactness in whatever pertained to the public pro- 
perty. 



47 



NOTE D. 

The services of the Protestant Episcopal Church were celebrated 
for the first time, in that part of the town called South Boston, on Sun- 
day, March 31, 1816. For more than two years the congregation 
met in a school-house, and services were conducted by different 
clergymen and lay-readers. St. Matthew's Church was consecrat- 
ed on the 24th of June, 181S, by the Right Rev. Dr. Griswold, 
bishop of the Eastern Diocess. It is situated on Broadway, and 
is a neat and commodious brick building. The expenses of its 
erection were chiefly defrayed by benevolent members of Trinity 
and Christ churches, with a view to the future wants of that sec- 
tion of the city. A service of plate for the use of the altar was 
presented by the ladies of Christ Church, and the pulpit, desk, and 
chancel, were furnished with appropriate dressings by the ladies 
of Trinity Church. The late Mrs. Elizabeth Bowdoin Winthrop 
was a most liberal benefactor. Religious services were main- 
tained in this church, by occasional supplies, but it was not till 
June, 1824, that the parish enjoyed the stated labors of a minis- 
ter in full orders, when the Rev. John L. Blake became rector. 

Mr. B. has since been succeeded by the Rev. Horace L. Conelly, 
the present rector. 

NOTE E. 

St. Augustine's Church was erected in 1819, by the Roman 
Catholic congregation in Franklin Street, then under the charge 
of the distinguished Right Rev. Bishop Cheverus, now the Arch- 
bishop of Bordeaux, in France, and principally by his assistance. 
Connected with the edifice, which is of brick, rather small, and 
apparently only occasionally used for a chapel, is a burial ground, 
in which catholics, only, are buried. It was doubtless the inten- 
tion of the Rev. Mr. Thayer, who made provision in his will for 
the establishment of a convent of Ursuline Nuns, to have located 
the institution near this church. By invitation of Bishop Chev- 
erus, in 1820, four nuns of that order arrived in Boston, and de- 
voted themselves to the instruction of female children till 1S26, 
when the Ursuline Community, which has since become exten- 
sively known by its misfortunes, was established at Charlestown. 



NOTE F. 

The Hawes Place Society originated in the desire of several 
individuals, most of whom were members of the Rev. Dr. Harris's 
Society in Dorchester, to have a nearer place of worship. As 
early as June, 1807, soon after the annexation of Dorchester 
Neck to Boston, Mr. John Hawes had appropriated a piece of 
ground, on which a house for public worship was to be erected, 
and executed a conveyance of it to the inhabitants of South Bos- 
ton. In the year 1810, he united with his neighbors, in erecting 
a building for a temporary place of worship. 

In the year 1818, they obtained of the Legislature an act of 
incorporation, with the title of The Hawes Place Congregational 
Society, in Boston, and enlarged their temporary place of wor- 
ship. On the 13th of May, in the following year, 1819, those 
members of the society, who were communicants, met to delibe- 
rate upon the expediency of forming a regular church ; and 
" voted unanimously, that the Secretary of this meeting (Mr. 
Wood) be requested to take such measures as shall be deemed 
requisite to effect such object." They assembled, accordingly, an 
Ecclesiastical Council, October 27, 1819, and accomplished the 
object. 

The church at first consisted of fourteen members, six male 
and eight female. They had their first meeting Nov. 15, 1819, 
at the house of Mr. John Hawes, and unanimously chose Mr. 
Wood to be clerk, and Isaac Thorn and Thomas Hammond to be 
deacons. 

With a view to render himself more useful to this church and 
society, Mr. Wood received ordination as an Evangelist, by a 
Council convened at Weymouth Nov. 13th, 1821, though he 
never held any pastoral relation to them. 

Soon after the decease of Mr. Wood, in 1822, the Rev. Lemuel 
Capen, of Dorchester, succeeded him as master of the public 
school, and continued, by their request, to minister to them. 
At a legal meeting of the society, January 28th, 1S23, they invit- 
ed him to become their permanent minister ; to which invitation 
he gave an affirmative answer. On account of his connection 
with the school, however, further measures for his installation 



49 

were deferred. At a legal meeting of the society, Oct. 8th, 1S27, 
they unanimously renewed their invitation to him to become their 
permanent minister, of which he renewed his acceptance, and 
an Ecclesiastical Council was accordingly convened for his instal- 
lation, October 31st, 1S27. The present place of worship is a 
neat wooden building, 60 feet by 46, was built in 1832, and dedi- 
cated January 1st, 1833. It is in every respect a free Church, 
being built and supported entirely by funds bequeathed by Mr. 
John Hawes. 

NOTE G. 

Powwow Point lies south of the Rev. Mr. Capen's residence, 
facing Thompson's Island. Indian relics have been occasionally 
found there, and were excavations made in the neighborhood, 
many singular aboriginal memorials would probably be brought to 
light. Squantum Rock, still further south, on the main land, has 
also been famous in Indian history. Till within a very few 
years, an annual feast, as it was denominated, was held on that 
rough promontory, in commemoration of an Indian Treaty, of 
great importance to the first settlers. A singular whim in rela- 
tion to the celebration, required that all the food used on the 
occasion should come out of the sea, and be eaten with clam- 
shells. 

Of the history of Boston, says Mr. Lewis, in his Annals, we 
have no other account before 1626, except a tradition furnished 
by John Thomas, a very aged Indian of Framingham. His 
father informed him, that when he was about sixteen years of 
age he lived with his father at the place now called Boston ; 
that there was then a very great sickness, and the Indians lay 
dead in almost every wigwam. Both at Boston and Dorchester 
Neck, now South Boston, so many Indians died, that they re- 
mained unburied, and the few surviving Indians removed to 
other places. 

NOTE H. 

Boston South Bridge. — The building of this bridge grew out 
of the project for annexing Dorchester Neck, so called, to Bos- 
ton, as a part of the city. In the latter end of 1803, there were 
but 10 families on that peninsula, which comprised an extent of 



50 

560 acres of land. These families united with several citizens 
of Boston in a petition to the town for the privilege of being an- 
nexed thereto, " upon the single condition that tlie inhabitants 
[of B.] will procure a bridge to be erected between Boston and 
Dorchester Neck." On the 31st of January, 1S04, after several 
confused meetings on the subject, the town agreed to the propo- 
sition, on condition " that the place from which and the terms on 
which the bridge should be built, shall be left entirely to the Leg- 
islature. Application was made to the General Court, and meas- 
ures were in train for authorizing a bridge from South Street to 
the Point. The inhabitants of the south end of the town, having 
opposed this measure in vain thus far in its progress, formed a 
plan at this juncture, in which they proposed to erect a bridge 
where the present bridge stands, and to obviate the objection that 
such a bridge would not lessen the distance from the Point so 
much as the South Street bridge would, they offered to construct 
a commodious street across the flats from Kainsford's lane to the 
head of the proposed bridge. They presented a petition to the 
Court to be incorporated for these purposes, upon the presumption 
that no liberty would be granted for the erection of any other 
bridge, to the northward of their bridge, unless at some future 
period the increased settlement of this part of the country should 
be such, that the public exigencies should require the same. 
This plan and petition met with so favorable a reception, that the 
Dorchester Point proprietors were induced to make a compro- 
mise with the South-end petitioners, in which it was agreed that 
the South Street bridge should be abandoned, and that the 
South-end bridge should be transferred to the Dorchester com- 
pany, and the proposed street be carried forward by the petition- 
ers. A joint committee made a report on the basis of this 
compromise, which was accepted in concurrence February 23d ; 
and on the 6th of March, bills were passed for the three objects, 
the annexation of Dorchester Neck to Boston, the incorporation 
of the Proprietors of Boston South Bridge, and also of the Front 
Street Corporation in the town of Boston. 

Messrs. William Tudor, Gardiner Green, Jona. Mason and 
Harrison Gray Otis, were the proprietors named in the Boston 



51 

South Bridge act. Seventy years improvement was allowed 
from the date of the first opening of said bridge for passengers, 
which took place in the summer of 1805. On the first of Octo- 
ber, it was the scene of a military display and sham fight. This 
bridge is 1551 feet in length, and cost the proprietors about 56,000 
dollars. In 1832 the proprietors sold the bridge to the city for 
$3,500 ; since which it has been put in thorough repair by the 
city, at an expense of $3,500, in addition to the amount paid by 
the corporation, and has been made a free highway. 

Boston Free Bridge. — Within two years after the erection of 
the Boston South Bridge, an attempt was made for another to 
run from Sea Street to South Boston. Many other attempts 
have been made since that time, to establish a bridge at this 
place, but thev were strongly opposed till the passage of an Act 
March 4, 1826, authorizing the erection of the present bridge. 
The committee of the Legislature, to whom the subject was re- 
ferred, gave this reason for reporting in favor of the bill : " that 
if the public good or public interest required that the proposed 
bridge should be constructed, then the prayer of the petitioners 
should be granted ; that indemnification should be made for 
property taken for the use of the bridge, but to no greater extent ; 
that the navigable waters being public property, the legislature 
had the right to control the use of them. The committee there- 
fore considered the only question arising was, whether the public 
exigency required this bridge. It appeared that about 100,000 
people, if this bridge were erected, would be saved a travel of 
one mile by coming from the south shore over this bridge, instead 
of over the Neck ; that an increasing intercourse would take place 
between the centre of business in the city and South Boston, and 
the distance be lessened a half a mile, which in a dense popula- 
tion is equal to ten or twenty miles in the country. The only 
objection to this bridge arose from persons in Roxbury, at the 
South End of Boston, and from a part of the proprietors of the 
old bridge ; that it did not appear that any others would be in- 
jured, and that these persons would not be injured to the extent 
they imagined. It was admitted that the navigation might be 
made a little inconvenient, but not so much so as was expected. 



52 

It appeared that the present channel might, by individual right, 
be narrowed to three hundred feet, which would increase the 
current more than the proposed bridge ; that the present current 
was about one mile the hour, while that at Charlestown Bridge 
was three miles ; that the increase to the price of wood if the 
bridge were erected, would be only six cents the cord ; and that 
with one or two exceptions all the bridges in the State had been 
granted without any indemnity for consequential damages, other 
than compensation for property converted to the use of such 
bridge. The committee came to the conclusion that no person 
ought to claim damages for an interruption of navigable waters, 
when the public accommodation required such interruption." 

This bridge was completed in 1828, by a company of gentle- 
men who were proprietors of lands at South Boston, and by resi- 
dents of that section, and who transferred it to the city in October. 

NOTE I. 

Seventeen persons, on the 2d of November, 1774, disguised as 
Indians, and armed, boarded three India ships, lying not far from 
Liverpool wharf, and threw overboard three hundred and forty- 
two chests of tea. The late Colonel Thomas Melville, reputed 
to have been one of the number, preserved a vial full, which has 
finally become a curiosity. The streets of Boston were lighted 
Avith lamps, for the first time, two months before this event. 

NOTE J. 

Boston has suffered more by this disease than any other city on 
the continent. In 1669 it prevailed extensively ; again in 167S ; 
and in 1721, eight hundred and forty-four persons died of it. In 
1752, it became alarmingly fatal, and five hundred and forty-five 
died. In 1764, the smallpox appeared again, and one hundred 
and twenty-four died. Again, in 1776, it began to be developed ; 
and in 1792, another fatal visitation was made by it. 

NOTE K. 

Charlestown was burned by the British, June 16, 1775. 
Many of the buildings were valuable, particularly one church, 
court house, prison, county house, and two school houses, beside 



53 

a workhouse and three hundred and eighty buildings of various 
sizes and value. A vast amount of property belonging to the 
inhabitants of Boston, who had stored it in Charlestown for safety, 
was totally destroyed. 

NOTE L. 
John Minot, who died June 25th, 1S05, at the age of 74, appears 
to have been a most active patriot, and an excellent and skilful 
manager of the affairs of the town. The select-men usually met 
at his house. He was a select-man, according to the town re- 
cords, through the perilous times of the revolution, and never 
flinched from any responsibility that was calculated to benefit his 
native place, elevate its character, or contribute to the success of 
his oppressed countrymen in arms. 

NOTE M. 

Dr. Walter, a man of considerable wealth, and certainly of 
great respectability, but a tory, left Boston with his Majesty's 
fleet, when Boston was evacuated, March 17th, 1776. Many 
years after the peace he returned to recover the property which 
he foolishly sacrificed. He drew a small pension from the 
British Government. The time and place of his death are not 
known to the writer. 

NOTE N. 
At this late period, it is difficult to get the exact phraseology 
of the conversation between the sentinel and the negro. Major 
Russell says that the quotation given is incorrect. The spirit of it, 
however, is considered by some others, who heard it repeated at 
the time, very much like that narrated. 

NOTE 0. 

It is just to correct this gross libel on the character of that 
honest man, even at this late period. 

Captain John Homans was born in Romansgale, Kent county, 
England, in 1703. He came to this country when a youth, and 
for many years commanded a ship employed in the London trade. 
He was exceedingly active and energetic, and having acquired 
a competency, being fond of agricultural pursuits, he purchased 



54 

the estate in Dorchester, long since known by the name of the 
Bowdoin Estate, situated at the four corners, on the upper road 
to Milton ; there he built a house, and, being yet fond of the sea, 
so constructed it, that from his parlor windows he could view the 
vessels passing in and out of port. He possessed great decision 
of character, and such was his industry that he continued to 
labor with his men until the last day of his life, when he fell 
dead in the field, in the summer of 1778, at the good old age of 
75 years. 

He had a numerous family, the oldest of whom, the late Dr. 
John Homans, of Boston, graduated at Cambridge in 1772, and, 
before he had completed his professional studies, joined the army 
at Cambridge, and received a commission of Surgeon in 1775. 
Dr. Homans continued to serve his country as Surgeon until the 
termination of hostilities. Both father and son were, in the lan- 
guage of those days, true " liberty men." 

NOTE P. 

Mr. William Sumner, now eighty-seven years of age, and 
nearly blind, from whom these particulars were learned, owns 
and still resides on the Homans farm. From him it has been 
ascertained that General Washington was at South Boston in the 
course of the night on which the fort was erected : he recently 
informed the writer that he saw and recognized the General, as 
he rode towards the Heights, accompanied by a few officers. 

NOTE Q. 

The meeting-house here alluded to, and which has been re- 
cently taken down to give place to a larger, was dedicated on the 
9th day of March, 1825. The church was organized on the 10th 
day of December, 1S23, and was called " The Evangelical Con- 
gregational Church in South Boston." It is now known by the 
name of " The Phillips Church ; " and the congregation in con- 
nection with it has been incorporated under the title of " The 
Phillips Church Society in Boston." The act of incorporation 
was obtained in the winter of 1834. The first pastor of the 
church, Rev. Prince Hawes, was installed on the 28th day of 



55 

April, 1824, and dismissed the 18th day of April, 1S27. The 
installation of the present pastor, Rev. Joy H. Fairchild, took 
place the 22d day of November, 1827. At that time the church 
contained 38 members ; and they, together with the congregation, 
constituted an assembly of less than one hundred oh the Sabbath. 
Since that period, 154 have been received to the communion, and 
the present number is 158. 

The pews in the former house were not sufficient in number 
to meet the demand, for more than a year previous to its demoli- 
tion. Hence the necessity of a larger house ; and the society 
are now erecting a new one, 80 feet long and 67 wide. There 
is a cellar under the whole, 7 feet in the clear ; and over the 
cellar are vestries and stores, 9 feet. The front view of the house 
is modelled after the Pine Street Meeting-house, except the 
tower, which is to be higher, and of a very different construction. 

NOTE R. 

On Nook Hill, near the Free Bridge, was the last breastwork 
thrown up by the American forces. The hill has since been 
nearly obliterated, and some part of its base occupied by dwellings. 

NOTE S. 
The individual here referred to, from whom some very inter- 
esting reminiscences have been collected relative to South Bos- 
ton in his youth, is Deacon Abraham Gould. Mrs. Gould, his 
wife, was daughter of widow Foster, whose house was burned by 
the soldiers. She is a lineal descendant from widow Foster, 
whose name is in the catalogue of the first proprietors of the Neck. 



In addition to the houses for public worship in South Boston 
already referred to in these Notes, there are the two following : 

About the year 1826, the subject of establishing a new meet- 
ing for divine worship in the South part of Boston, began to 
engage the attention of a few Baptist friends. In May, 1827, 
stated weekly lectures were commenced by Mr. Ensign Lincoln 
in the Pedo-Baptist house of worship, and sustained by the 
neighboring pastors for a few weeks, but soon abandoned, for 
want of encouragement in the congregation. 



56 

Not in the least discouraged by this failure, one of the brethren, 
residing in this part of the city, immediately purchased a conve- 
nient house, previously occupied by the Methodists, upon his 
own responsibility, and gave the use of it to his brethren. 

On the 28th of August, 1828, the desk having been supplied for 
the last year, principally by Rev. Harvey Ball and Rev. Otis Wing, 
19 individuals were recognized as a branch of the Federal Street 
Baptist Church. " On the 1st of March, 1831, it was deemed ex- 
pedient that these members be formed into a church. The 
measure was adopted with perfect unanimity," and 52 brethren 
and sisters were publicly recognized as the " South Baptist 
Church of the city of Boston." 

From December, 1828, to April, 1830, this people enjoyed the 
able and efficient labors of the Rev. Thomas Driver. 

On the 22d of July, 1830, the beautiful edifice, now occupied 
as a place of worship (72 feet long by 57 wide), was solemnly 
dedicated to the service of God. 

In October, 1830, the Rev. R. H. Neale accepted the unani- 
mous invitation of the church and society to become their pastor ; 
but he was not publicly recognized as such till September 15th, 
1833. This relation was dissolved March 19th, 1834. During 
Mr. Neale's connection with this people, extensive additions were 
made both to the church and society. May 25th, 1834, the Rev. 
T. R. Cressy was publicly recognized as pastor. 

The Universalist Society in South Boston, was formed in the 
spring of 1830. During this spring they engaged Mr. Benjamin 
Whittemore, who was then residing in Troy, N. Y. to become 
their pastor. From this time until the spring of 1833, they 
occupied Harding's Hall, as their place of public worship. In the 
spring of 1833, they had completed a neat, convenient meeting- 
house, about seventy feet in length, by fifty in breadth, surmounted 
by a cupola, and containing eighty-two pews, with a gallery for 
singers. On the 10th of April, this house was dedicated, and 
Mr. Whittemore was installed. The society is in a flourishing 
condition — its meetings are well attended. 



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